Man recounts 21-day ordeal, lost and fleeing elephants (Prachin Buri)
Man recounts 21-day ordeal, lost and fleeing elephants (Prachin Buri)
Manit Sanubboon, Bangkok Post
January 12, 2022
See link
https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2246427/man-recounts-21-day-ordeal-lost-and-fleeing-elephants
for photo.
A missing man has staggered exhausted and starving out of a vast area of
eucalyptus and rubber plantations with an incredible story of having spent
21 days lost and fleeing attacks by wild elephants.
Thongsa Wanthumma, 43, was back at his home in Ban Wang Thong village in
tambon Wang Tha Chang of Kabin Buri district on Wednesday.
He appeared totally worn out by his proclaimed ordeal and was using a
wooden crutch because, he said, his legs were weak after weeks of living on
leaves and running for his life from herds of elephants.
Mr Thongsa had gone missing on Dec 22. Five days later police found his
motorcycle abandoned in the middle of a rubber plantation, about 10
kilometres from the eucalyptus plantation where he worked as a timber
cutter, and eight kilometres from the house where he lived with his mother.
Mr Thongsa said on Wednesday that on Dec 22 he was riding his motorcycle
back home along a trail deep in a eucalyptus plantation in tambon Tha Kra
Dan of Chachoengsao's Sanam Chai Khet district, near his village.
He found himself confronted by a big herd of wild elephants. He abandoned
his motorcycle and fled, panicked into the rubber and eucalyptus
plantations.
Later, he could not find his way back out. The plantations spread over an
area of about 20,000 rai. The area was full of wild elephants and he had
been trying to avoid them and find his way home ever since.
He said he saw elephant herds roaming there every day. They came out of
Khao Ang Rue Nai Wildlife Sanctuary in search of food.
"In the plantations I had no food. I survived by eating sour leaves and
drank from ponds and irrigation canals. At night I slept on leaves that I
gathered to keep myself warm," Mr Thongsa said.
All the time he was lost he prayed for a blessing from holy spirits and his
parents so that he could find his way safely out of the trees, he said.
Mr Thongsa finally emerged from the plantations on Tuesday morning. He met
a neighbour and got a ride to a relative's house.
One of his neighbours said that when they were searching for him they found
the remains of two people apparently killed by wild elephants.
The victims' clothes were in tatters and the mutilated bodies
unidentifiable and covered with leaves and soil, which was what wild
elephants did after killing humans, she said, but asked not to be named.